Love, Justice, and Idealism

Idealism: Self-righteousness vs. God's righteousness

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Genre: Speech

Track: 107

Dictation Name: RR154A2

Location/Venue: ________

Year: 1960’s-1970’s.

Let us pray. Almighty God our heavenly father, we thank thee for faithful witnesses like these men of the committee of Christian Knights, who defended thy truths, who worked to cleanse thy church of the powers of the anti-christ. And we pray our father, put thy blessing upon them, and thy protecting hand. Defend them we beseech thee against the powers of darkness, strengthen them in the this time of testing. Increase their faith and their courage, and give them the blessed assurance that if thou art for us, who can be against us! And in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loves us. Prepare us our father for the testing time ahead. Make us ever mindful that thou art on the throne and that the government is upon thy shoulders, and the certainty of thy victory incontestable. Bless us to this faith we beseech thee, in Jesus name. Amen.

Let us turn now to the twelfth chapter of Genesis.

Genesis 12.

“12 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

4 So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

7 And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.

8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.

9 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.

10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:

12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

14 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

15 The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

16 And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.

17 And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.

18 And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?

19 Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.

20 And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.”

This chapter is probably the most difficult that we have yet had and this is the point at which many people find that the bible is highly objectionable and they resent the plain statement of this chapter. We shall cite a little later Augustus’s interpretation and the point he made that the interpretation of the manichaeans, the duelists, the grandfathers of the illuminati had an interpretation which today unfortunately is the standard one of most churches.

But first let’s look at Abraham as this chapter reveals him to us. We should study Abraham closely. We may be living in times that will put us in similar predicaments. First of all Abraham and his father and his relatives left for the Ur of the Chaldees. This is described to us in the previous chapter. God had summoned them to leave and to go to palestine. They went as far as Haran and stayed there. The rest of the family just couldn’t bring themselves to go any further, so Abraham alone went on. It was a hard step for them to take. Ur of the Chaldees at that time was a great and civilized city. If we were to see a modeled scale plan of their houses we would find them fairly modern, quite similar to Spanish style architecture.

We would also feel very much at home in ancient Ur of the Chaldees; it was the city that had many modern conveniences. It had public schools, it had co-education in these public schools, it had it’s universities.... and in fact, we do know that they even had museums! Not too many years ago when they were excavating in Ur of the Chaldees and they entered into this one room of a large building, excavating from above, they were quite upset when they found some pieces that were obviously very old and other pieces that were centuries later lying side by side. And then when they began to read the inscriptions they realized they had fallen into the room of an ancient museum. They had their archaeologists and their museums in Ur of the Chaldees.

Now, Abraham had to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go from this area that had modern conveniences out into an area that was an outpost of civilization. That had a reputation not only of being, for the most part, a primitive area but as well a decadent and a degenerate area! Where there was the most flagrant kind of contempt for law and order, and God said: this is the appointed place. Abraham therefore had to leave civilization for a barbaric, immoral, lawless situation. Moreover the only cultures in that area, Sodom and Gomorrah, represented the most degenerate and perverted kind of civilization.

He had to go by faith. God gave him a name that it took courage to bear. Abraham, father of a multitude. And Sarah to bear the same Sarai or Sarah, which indicates a potent faith. We’re familiar with the word today as (Sar?) the word (Kisar?) or (kisar?) or caesar... all these are words that are related to Sarah. Now. To carry that name, father of a multitude, he who was to be the forerunner of the promised people. Innumerable, without a single child... again it was an act of faith. But God called him and said, I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee, make thy name great and thou halt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curseth them that curseth thee and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

We have found evidence of the family names of Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees. We don’t know if it’s the same persons, but apparently a very prominent family. Possibly the same one. We do know that most of the family, the rest of the family except for his nephew Lot and himself remained in Haran so that Abraham left his homeland relatively forced, as one who broke with the family, who went out with next to nothing. And he finally arrived and came to Canaan. Just a pilgrim with next to nothing, God appeared unto Abraham and said: “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” And there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him.

But almost immediately, something else happened. Abraham, at the price of a break with his family goes out with next to nothing to the promised land and almost immediately he has to leave. There was a famine in  the land, a drought. Only one place to go then, southward to Egypt where there was grain in abundance and where he could eat and survive. But to go into Egypt was a perilous thing, he was an outsider, he had no standing in Egypt under their law because in ancient times the law applied to citizens and a person who was not a citizen was outside the law and the protection of the law!

Moreover in that day and age, adultery was a sin no one dared to commit. But they had no hesitation in murdering someone who was outside of the law. So, Abraham was faced with this problem; if they went there as man and wife then he could very easily be murdered, very casually so that Sarah might be taken. And so he asked Sarah to tell them that they were brother and sister, thereby that his life might be spared.

The result was that some of the princes saw her and commended her as a potential wife or member of the haram to Pharaoh, who took her in. Otherwise Abraham would have been killed and she would have been taken. The same thing would have been accomplished. God immediately smote Pharaoh’s house with plagues, and we’re not told how but revealed to Pharaoh the reason was. And Pharaoh, filled with terror at what had taken place and fear of Abraham for whom God had done such things, restored Sarah to Abraham. He had not touched her, we are told, and he makes a point of saying that to Abraham, and he loaded him with wealth! So that Abraham came into the situation a poor man and left rich in livestock and rich in (plates?).

Now the attitude of the manichaeans was that at this point Abraham had sinned fearfully. This is the attitude also of the Scofield bible, by the way, it speaks of Abraham’s lapse into sin. Augustine in the City of God in book 16, chapter 19, he wrote: “Now he did not deny that she was his wife but held his peace about it. Committing to God the defence of his wife’s chastity and providing as a man against human wiles. Because if he had not provided against the danger as much as he could he would have been tempting God rather than trusting him. We have said enough about this matter against the (colonies?) of (fascist?) manichaeans. As last what Abraham had expected the Lord to do took place, for Pharaoh king of Egypt who had taken in her to him as his wife restored her to her husband on being severely plagued.

Now lets back up and examine some of the presuppositions that come into this situation. Last week we went into at great length the epics, the moralities of monism of dualism and of biblical faith. We saw that monism says all things are one and the destiny of all things is to come together in an ultimate unity, and in this theme of things love is paramount and it’s the higher way and law and justice are seen as a lower say, as divisive. Whereas dualism sees law not merely as the lower way but as an actually evil way. Justice is the work of an evil God. The gnostics, the talmud, the illuminist see the God of the old testament as being the bad creator god who is the author of justice and hate and all things evil, and the god of love is the only good god, the only true god. And they spoke of themselves, these heretics who were truly anti-christian as being new testament Christians and the only true christians while throwing out the bible. Now both monism and dualism are idealistic and perfectionistic. The word idealism has come to be a good word. We should regard to as a bad word! It’s root is in Greek paganism, it has always had a subversive connotation in history until recent times.

We don’t have the time now to trace the history of the words idea back to the greek era, but the word idea and idealism and in particular idealism we must recognize as having a bad connotation. Because the Bible is anti-idealistic, it is a realistic book. It begins with the greek reality God as absolute and utter sovereign, then it faces the fact of what man is and describes that realistically, without ideals. There’s no idealisation in the bible, is there. When we come to king David for example, we are told that David is the beloved of God, but when we’re told that there is no idealization of David we are told what his sins are.  We are told for example, that he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had Uriah the Hittite, the husband, murdered to get him out of the way. His sin is not spared!

We are told over and over again that truth not only about particular men, but about ourselves! And this is one reason why the bible is not a very popular book. When people want to get religious they find it much easier to go to the hindu religious writings or some other writings because they have so many noble and idealistic statements in them. So they go for these other religions like a pig goes for slop! Because they praise man and that’s what so many people, when they get religious, want. They want to be told how wonderful they are and the bible tells us how wonderful God is and what the truth about us is.

Or in our idealism or in our perfection but in the goodness of and in the perfection of God and in the grace of God as revealed to us in Jesus Christ. We’re not saved because we are good and in fact if we think we are that’s the biggest roadblock to our salvation according to scripture. We are saved when we come, as the old hymn says: nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. When we come to God and say indeed Oh Lord thy word is truth, in us there is no good thing for we have sinned in word, thought, and deed. And we accept the sentence of death {?} passed upon us in the person of Jesus Christ, and we accept him as our sin bearer who died for us. And we accept him as our federal head who rose again from the dead for us. So that in him we accept the sentence of death and in him we accept the gift of eternal life and righteousness.

So that we stand before God now cleansed of our sins through Christ’s work, sentenced to death and free because we are dead judicially. He’s died in our place and we’re alive because of his resurrection power. We are saved therefore not because of our perfection or our goodness but because of God’s perfection, goodness, and grace. The issue then between Christianity and all other religions is this. Self righteousness vrs. God’s righteousness as revealed in Jesus Christ. This is it, very clearly. And the bible gives us pictures of men over and over again very clearly seen as was stated with all his grace and yet beloved of God. And it was significant that God never never condemned men for recognizing their frailty. He never does. He gives them the strength in such a situation.

Those of you who know something about alcoholics and alcoholics anonymous know that there’s no possibility of any man overcoming his alcoholic as long as he says “Don’t worry, I can lick it and I’m going to.” He can overcome it when he says “I’m licked and I’ve got to find a power greater than myself to give me power to overcome it.” So the first step towards overcoming alcoholism is to recognize that we’re licked, second, to look to a higher power... to God. Now idealism has no tolerance of anything short of perfection.

This is it’s boast. This is it’s plan of salvation. This is what judaism had become at the time of Christ! Works, perfection, this was man’s hope. And when Christ came along preaching that there was no hope in man’s works, and exposing their hypocrisy and calling them hypocrites, whitewashed sepulchres, with all their pretentions towards good works. They turned on him savagely, because they loved their self righteousness.

It’s a rather amusing story about one of the leading rabbis of that era who believed he kept the law perfectly, that he was a perfect man. And he let everybody know that he kept the law perfectly until a number of people said to this rabbi: Well, it’s quite apparent you’re very close to perfection, but at one point you shall short. You’re not humble. You’re so very very proud of your law keeping!

So, this rabbi from thereon out made a great show about being humble... and always deprecating himself and always saying of course he was nothing, he was nobody, and so on and so forth and so everyone began to make quite a to do now about his perfections.

This perfect keeping of the levitical law and the talmudic law and living with such humility. At one great meeting when he was being introduced the chairman forgot to mention how humble he was and the rabbi indignantly yanked -or poked- at his toga and said: You forgot to say how humble I am!

Now this is the kind of self righteousness, the hypocrisy, that Jesus pointed out. Not only in such mild forms, but in deadly forms.

Now idealism wants perfection, and where it cannot find perfection it condemns. It seeks to destroy. Go back to the abolitionists in the time of the 1840’s and 60’s, what were they saying? Because there is slavery it is better for the union to be destroyed than for it to exist with slavery. They meant it. They burned the constitution publically, they trampled on the flag, they did everything to express their contempt of the united states. Why? Cause it was not perfect. And they treated the bible the same way. They wanted perfection and they were ready to destroy anything if they could not get it.

Isn’t that the essence of the civil rights movement today? Certainly we can grant them that there are negroes who have been mistreated... we can also say that there are white men who’ve been mistreated. Does that give us an excuse for destroying the country because certain things happen in it that are not perfection? But this is the mentality of the idealist, the perfectionist. Anything short of perfection is intolerable.

It means finally, destroying liberty, because liberty feeds problems and it isn’t all perfection with liberty. And that’s why they’re statist. Perfectionists are statists because they cannot tolerate liberty, it produces problems. It allows imperfections to remain. Communism is an idealistic space, it seeks the perfect world.

Now the bible calls for a world under God’s law. It does not promise us perfection this side of heaven, perfection comes from God. It is conferred upon us with our immortality, but we do not obtain perfection in this life. But communism as an idealistic space says that all men are naturally good, evil is in the environment which is capitalism, and religion, and some other things. But all men are naturally good. Then because all men are naturally good all men should be, and they are, brothers! Third because all men are good and all men are brothers they can all share everything and they will be better off.

Fourth there will be no war, there will be perfect peace, if we change the system and allow this natural goodness, this natural brotherhood in man to prevail. Well, the result is hell on earth because it violates reality because it is perfectionist, because it is idealistic, because it doesn’t look at the world as it is but it looks at it’s ideal and says: We’re going to force all people into this mold, it is the bed of propriety.

Those who were too long, you remember (historian?) myths when they stretched on his bed their legs had to be sawed off to fit the bed and those who were too short had to be stretched. That’s idealism! But men are sinners according to scripture, and because they are sinners they are divided from God which means as a result they are divided from their various brothers, their own families, and they are divided from themselves. They are at war with God, they are at war with their neighbors, and they are at war with themselves! This is the biblical account of reality!

And you can’t expect this man who is at war with God is favoring himself to be the component of a perfect world... bad eggs will not make a good tasting omelet. You need the reign of justice and of God’s law as a check, (commanding?) sin. And men are possessed, and you have to live with it. And you have to recognize that under a Godly scheme this is a good thing, for men to want defend what is their own. And so a Christian society, a Godly society, does not try to conform men to an ideal but it recognizes what God says is the reality about man and that God’s law is geared to fit that reality and therefore it is the perfect law for man, because it is the law in terms of realities. [0:34:18}

God’s law feeds justice. God did not condemn Abraham. Now we may not like the God who put Abraham in that kind of a position because it means if he could do this to Abraham he can do it to us! And that’s the basic objection to the God of Abraham. But there is nothing in the scriptures that inferred for a moment that God condemns Abraham. Instead, he protected him in his course. And yet, people say, well Abraham lied! Or even if technically in terms of the relationship there was a way in which he could have said that he was his sister in terms of the usage and so on.

The issue is not met fully. Are we obligated to tell the truth to someone who is out to kill us? Now an idealist would say, yes, under all circumstances men should tell the truth. Let me remind you of another chapter of Bible. In the Judges, Rahab. Rahab was a prostitute, she was in Jericho. What happened? The Israelites sent two spies into the country and into the city and they were spotted going in. Rahab saved their lives, and she said: I know that your God is a true God, and our land is to be given over to you. Remember me and my household when you possess the land.

She showed faith in their cause and the true God, and a readiness to stand in terms of it. The kings men came knocking at her door: “Where are those two spies who came?” They were out to kill them, and Rahab said: “Oh, they were here but they’ve left! They’ve gone! If you run, you can catch them before they cross the ford at the river.” She hid the men, she let them down over the wall and told them: “Hide out for a few days until these men, who’re going to be watching every ford, have given up figuring you’d already crossed.” They did, and their lives were saved.

I’ve had people tell me that Rahab was a terrible woman for telling a lie under those circumstances. Well let’s say she told the truth. Two godly men would have been murdered! Could she have been proud of that? Could she say, I am such a noble person, I told the truth. Are we under any obligation to tell the truth to someone who comes around with a bayonet and says: Now, where is your money and your family? I would say the idealism that would say I’ve got to turn over all my silver to him or my gold and tell him where my family is is wicked. I am under no obligation to tell the truth to anyone who is putting me in that position.

And while it may not be virtuous in the idealistic sense, I believe God wants me to defend my own. But I’m not to worry about my protection, my perfection, but the protection of God’s people. Now this may sound like a fearful doctrine to some people, but I think it’s God’s, and certainly in the New Testament we are told twice that Rahab was blessed by God and singled out together with Abraham as an example of true faith! And that very incident of Rahab saving the spies is an incidence of true faith. In other words, she did not stand in terms of her righteousness, she knew what she was and she stood in the righteousness of God. And that’s not saying that it was a holy and a noble thing to lie but what I’m saying was that Rahab was not concerned with what she wanted, she knew what she wanted, but she was concerned with: what is the best thing I can do under the circumstances?

It would be wonderful if life were all black and white, if at every point we had a choice between good and evil. But you don’t. Very often you’re only choice is between the lesser of two evils, isn’t it? Very often it’s the choice between saving this person or that. My father faced that choice several times when there were only a handful of people whose lives he could save. He had to say: these I will save and these I cannot. Life is not easy when we live in the world of evil.

And idealism will not fix it. God let’s Abrahams realism, he did not let Josiah’s idealism... King Josiah, who was a Godly man was going to do something and expect God to help him where it was impossible. He charged in against Pharaoh when he was warned do not go against Pharaoh, God will deal with him. Stay out, save your neck. But no! He was going to be noble, he was going to make a stand, a heroic stand! And he lost his life and sealed the fate of the nation. WIth foolish idealism.

As Christians therefore we must stand in terms of faith and courage and realism, but we must also know that the issues of fate do not depend upon us. They depend on God, the duties are ours and the results are God’s. And Abraham the friend of God had courage when needed and caution when needed. And God blessed him. And made him the father of a multitude, of a great and a powerful people. And Rahab? She became one of the {?} of our Lord the savior Jesus Christ. God blessed her also mightily.

I think therefore difficult and distasteful as this chapter is; and it took me a long time to stop trying to read something into this passage, trying to read it in the manouchian and the illuminist and in the scofieldian sense by trying to see some fault in Abraham, but no, the scripture is plain. Abraham is not condemned at any point. He goes into it a poor man, he comes out with riches. God blessed him. He knew he had an obligation to survive, to do God’s work. He couldn’t throw his life away when it would have ended up in the same thing for Sarah, but if he were alive then he could do something for her. God blessed him.

This chapter is a dividing line in scripture. As people read it their idealism comes to the fore. Or else their willingness to live in terms of the hard realities of this world under God. Let us conclude now with prayer and we’ll have time for questions thereafter as well as some other date I’d like to bring to your attention.

Almighty God our heavenly father we thank thee for this thy word. Indeed O Lord this is a difficult and a trying world, and at times we are confronted with decisions that we can only make with distaste. But we thank thee our father that in and behind all these things thou dost stand, and the outcome will be because it comes from thee goodness for us. Thou dost make all things work together for good for them that love God, to them who are the called according to thy purpose. Prepare us our father for this and the difficult days ahead in terms of Christian realism. Knowing how weak we are in the face of the enemy, knowing how great thou art, and that though the battle may often go against us... the war will be won by us in thee. That thou art king of kings and lord of lords, and according to thy word the increase of thy government there shall no end. We thank thee for this assurance of victory. And pray our father that we might always be mindful that this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our Savior. In Jesus name, Amen.

Are there any questions now with respect to this chapter before we go on to some other matters?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

There is a perfect pattern but it is not an idealistic pattern. You see there is a difference between the biblical conception of perfection and the idealistic conception of perfection. For us perfection is living in terms of obedience to God, and also recognizing -although there are some christians here at this point- that perfection is not attainable in this life. Perfection in it’s fullness, in it’s permanence, comes with eternity. When we die, perfection is imputed to us and inferred upon us by the grace of God.

Now, as I say, there are some churches -and I don’t agree with them- who do hold that perfection is attainable in this life. But even they say that it’s something that you can slip out of, so that it’s not anything it’s an abiding condition of man. So that the calling, the christian calling, is not apart from Jesus Christ. So it is not our perfection, but it is accepting the perfection of Christ and then putting on his perfection. Which we put on with perfection only in the life to come. So it was never ours, it’s always Christ, both in our justification and in our sanctification and in our glorification. It is Christ’s perfection.

Does that help explain?...

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. So that, you see, we don’t believe in a perfect man that is our selfish perfect man nor do we hold to a perfect church we hold to a perfect savior. And it’s his perfection that’s imputed to us.

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Right. In that statement by our Lord every word indicates the situation of compulsion. You live with the reality of the situation, you can’t expect justice out of it, you can’t expect justice out of it therefore you go along with it and you pray for your enemy. You look to God in the situation with prayer and then show the grace of God unto them. That’s all you can do.

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Now to comment on this text judge not lest ye be judged, let’s recognize that this text has been misused however by many liberals. Now, what does our Lord mean when he summons us to avoid judging? Well first it definitely eliminates gossip. Second, it says that we as individuals are not to take judgement into our hands. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” saith the Lord. Now how does God exercise judgement? First he exercises it supernaturally. When he intervenes in history to judge peoples or individuals. Sometimes very dramatically, this has happened many a time in history.

I’m almost tempted to take time to describe the death of Arius the great unitarian in the fourth century, and how dramatically he died as a result of his judgement with God. But this often happens.

Then God judges through the state and it’s laws. The state or government is ordained by God and the laws, laws against murder, laws against theft, these laws are a reflection of God’s laws. And the laws of our country were established originally and as they still are inspite of all that the courts are doing to overthrow them, they are a reflection of God’s law. Therefore it is God judging the murderer and the thief, and it is God’s vengeance on the evil doers {?} us. Then again, the churches are established by God. God is exercising judgement in and through the court. The court of the church.

Unfortunately practically no church court today except in a few churches has any function, it doesn’t judge anyone. It’s more concerned with getting ever Tom, Dick, and Harry in especially if he’s the wrong sort. Now we then are to exercise judgement by cooperating with these instruments of justice that God has established. These instruments of judgement: First we pray. When we see an evil or we believe there is evil in a situation, we pray. Second we work to support authorities of law. Third we work to strengthen the church so that it can exercise judgement, and we do what we can to report crime, to assist law enforcement men. And so on.

These are the ways whereby God judges and we support his judgement. We give our amen to it. But when we try to take the law in our hands, or we sit back and just condemn or gossip, then the commandment is against us. Judge not lest ye be judged, but vengeance is mine and I will repay, saith the Lord. And then the Lord says, these are the instruments of my judgements to direct the state and the church.

Now the scripture also says that when the times are evil the wicked flourishes beneath the green fig tree. So that we know that the wicked prosper, according to the scripture, when times are evil. It’s a sure test of an evil time if it’s the evil who rise to the top and if it’s the evil who prosper.

While we’re waiting for another question it would be perhaps of interest to read the statement of James with respect to Rahab, in James 2:25.

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers and sent them out and no other way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” In other words, Rahab demonstrated her faith by that action.

Our other questions, I’ll consider them in a minute but I’m going to try to answer now in one several questions some of you have asked about certain books. I couldn’t locate all of the books that you asked questions about because I do not have all my books intact. But one of them that two of three of you asked about was (Marshaled?) World Conquerors: The Real  War Criminals. Now this is like any other book, it has some very important stuff in it. Some very startling and telling stuff. Certainly in it’s account of what went on in central Europe during and after the war is excellent, but there’s a peculiar fact about this book; and this appears in so many good books by ostensibly conservatives that nullifies them for any use, and it’s this.

I’ll read it too you. Which makes this book stupid, and immediately worthless. Describing people who because they were conservative or came out into the conservative cause suddenly died: “Henry Wass, who was a member of an odd oriental sect and believed that with the help of some wild cats harem he would live one hundred and fifty years and become Roosevelt's vice president, but when he turned out to be difficult and not (menaful?) to the powers behind the scenes he died quite suddenly and quite young.” Well, Wallace is still alive of course! Now anyone who uses this book, and there’s a lot of good data in it, can easily be made a monkey out of just by saying this is the kind of authority you trust in!

To cite another writer which some of you mentioned; a british and canadian intelligent man, a naval officer, Carr. Who’s written Pawns in the Game and Red Fog over America. There are some exceptionally important facts in some of those books! Obviously he has read a lot of the source material like Robinson on the Illuminati and other things and the accounts of people who were in the movement as Robinson was... And he has reported them very accurately. But then what happens? When he confronts the simple fact of American history there is so much miss mash that it’s startling. The man who ran against Thomas Jefferson for the presidency was John (Spincey?) Adams, according to Carr. Well it was John Adams. The president during the war of 1812, according to him, was Andrew Jackson. Well it was James Madison.

And so on down the line. Such a hodge podge of confusion of ordinary facts, while some important facts were brought out! And then in one of the two volumes he condemns orthodox christianity and says the only true christians are the jews before, who were better known for their naked parading in Canada -they exist in various parts of the world- but are actually an anti-Christian group of very definitely illuminist background and associations! These he called the truly Christian group!

Now I think we have a very great reason for being entirely suspicious of this writer inspite of very many valuable facts, and to wonder if perhaps some assistant or ghostwriter didn’t have quite a hand there. I don’t know anything about the man. This is also true about a number of other quotes. To cite two, I won’t mention them but to give them as examples.

One book, which has been written by an ex communist who for years was an organizing in this country and in England with extensive contacts in Europe on the nature and organization of the communist underground which is used extensively as a textbook, which is recommended very widely. This is curious fact. The book is completely accurate from start to finish, very scrupulously, very carefully written. But it doesn’t give us one new fact that hadn’t been given before. Which is very interesting! Other writers who had never gone as far and as high and as deep into this communist conspiracy as this man had had already told everything he did and more. And he who should have been able to reveal far more reveals nothing except what is already revealed, so while it’s completely accurate, it is dangerous.

Because if you use the book without caution and trust the man, you can be led astray. Now to cite another book. And I’m not going to mention names in either of these cases, but in this other instance the book is an exceedingly important book and it does reveal data that no one else has revealed and it is scrupulously accurate.. I know two men who are able scholars, who have taught in major universities who went over the book carefully and said there wasn’t anything they could find in it that was wrong, and much that was so startling absolutely true. And yet, someone in naval intelligence has given me quite a bit of information about the man saying that he is exceedingly dangerous.

And I myself thoroughly believe it now and virtue is something that he has said. The answer is not in facts, and we cannot trust a source of facts too far. We can use them, but we have to use them with caution. They can often be sprinkled with something like this book.

As I’ve said, don’t misunderstand, I don’t know anything about the author I don’t know why that error was there, maybe it’s just a blunder. But it’s strange that so colossal a blunder could be made! But it certainly posed anyone who used the book like this to being ridiculed. And the answer to our situation is not in the facts that he had to give, we already know everyone of us enough to know what we’re faced with. What we need is faith, (basic?) to fight it and trust in God. That he’s going to do it and it isn’t going to depend upon our feeble efforts. We have to make our stand. The duties are ours, the results are in the hands of God. But be careful about this book, and Carr’s, and I forget some of the others if you remind me of them I’ll try to answer them. But I’ve been putting it off because of lack of time, and so I’ve forgotten some of these titles.

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Yes. Iron Curtain over America is good, and the man, (Beedy?), was a good man.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Well there is a great deal in Carr, in fact, there’s more on Carr than (Beedy?) but you can trust (Beedy?) and you can’t trust Carr.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Are there any other questions? Well, I think that we can wind it up.

[audio ends]